SHALOM ADVOCATES FOR PEACE-BUILDING TO BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF IRELAND’S OVERSEAS AID POLICY

When the Government of Ireland undertook a review of
its overseas aid programme in 2018 and invited interested parties to contribute
their views, Rev. Dr Patrick Devine, International Chairman of Shalom-SCCRR,
made a detailed submission, based on the organization’s expertise, experience
and acclaimed profile in conflict transformation and peace-building.

The submission was
aligned carefully with the UN Sustainable
Peace Initiative which places preventive
action and post-conflict
peace-building on par with peace-making and peace-keeping. The report by the
Secretary-General to the High Level Meeting on Sustaining Peace in April 2018 laid
the groundwork for an important policy-breakthrough, empowering civilians with
new tools, better management practices, and hopefully new financial resources
to contribute to a more integrated and coherent framework for global conflict
management that delivers positive peace.

Important features of the
initiative are:

It
elevates the role of civil society and regional organisations in sustaining
peace.

It stresses
that the UN development system and development practitioners in general are
central to conflict prevention and sustaining peace.

It buttresses
the case for “more predictable and sustained financing” for civilian-led
peace-building through a proposed Funding Compact with Member States,
against the backdrop of declining development assistance to conflict-affected
countries as a share of global aid (from 40% in 2005 to 28% in 2015).

Pathways
for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict is a
joint study by the UN and the World Bank. The study originates from the
conviction on the part of both institutions that the attention of the
international community needs to be urgently refocused on prevention of
conflict.

The human and
economic cost of conflicts around the world requires all concerned to work more
collaboratively. The SDGs should be at the core of this approach. Development
actors need to provide more support to national and regional prevention agendas
through targeted, flexible, and sustained engagement. Prevention agendas, in
turn, should be integrated into development policies and efforts, because
prevention is cost-effective, saves lives, and safeguards development gains.

Inclusive decision making is fundamental
to sustaining peace at all levels, as are long-term policies to address
economic, social, and political aspirations. Fostering the participation of
young people as well as of the organizations, movements, and networks that
represent them is crucial. Women’s meaningful participation in all aspects of
peace and security is critical to effectiveness, including in peace processes,
where it has been shown to have a direct impact on the sustainability of
agreements reached.

The SDGs in the
Context of Peace

SDG
No. 16 aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable
development, provide justice for all, and build effective, accountable and
inclusive institutions at all levels. It asks “how can a country develop—how
can people eat and teach and learn and work and raise families—without peace?
And how can a country have peace without justice, without human rights, without
government based on the rule of law?

That goal is
specifically focused on positive peace in societies where sustainable
development can take place and be effective. All of the SDGs are predicated on
a minimum of negative peace and the potential for the realization of positive
peace (concept of negative vs positive peace explained later in this
submission). They recognise that sustainable development without sustainable
peace is not possible.

Ireland’s Overseas Aid
Policy

Shalom advanced the view that Ireland’s overseas aid
programme should be well informed by evidential research on the
geopolitical context of its appropriation at the grassroots, national, regional
and global dimensions, and that its aid policy should prioritise conflict
transformation and peace-building that involves the participation of civil
society organisations with the appropriate competence and capacity, and that
this should be reflected in a meaningful manner it its new strategy.